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Kadek Wara Urwasi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (IFAR), Urban Design

Kadek Wara Urwasi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research (IFAR), Monash University, Indonesia, and an affiliate of the Master of Urban Design program. Trained in sociology, urban design, and architecture, her work bridges political sociology and spatial analysis to examine how cities are governed and transformed.

Her current research focuses on the politics of urban development. She develops the concept of discretionary urbanism to explain how states govern informal settlements and real-estate through selective enforcement, uneven regulation, and negotiated practices rather than stable rule-based systems. Her empirical work centers on Jakarta while engaging broader comparative and historical questions about city-making in Asian contexts.

Wara completed her PhD in Sociology at Northwestern University in 2024. Her dissertation, Interests, Power, and Ideas: The Politics of Urban Informality Governance in Jakarta, 1945–2022, analyzes how local political interests, community power, and ideational politics shape governmental responses to informal settlements across democratic and authoritarian regimes.

At Monash University, Indonesia, she teaches urban design theory and governance, where she integrates sociological and political analysis into design-based learning.

More information

Urwasi, Kadek Wara, and Zahra Khairunnisa. 2026. "Mosaics of Insurgency: Grassroots Strategies and Global City Formation from Jakarta’s Margins." In Global Cities in Indonesia, edited by Henny Warsilah and Paulus Wirutomo. Singapore: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-4530-8_6
Urwasi, Kadek Wara. 2026. Review of Jakarta: The City of a Thousand Dimensions, by Abidin Kusno. Asian Studies Review, February 2026, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2026.2627637.
Urwasi, Kadek Wara. 2025. "Insurgent Planning versus Discretionary Urbanism in Jakarta." New Mandala, September 23, 2025.
Urwasi, Kadek Wara. 2024. "Interests, Power, and Ideas: The Politics of Urban Informality Governance in Jakarta, 1945-2022." PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University.
Urwasi, Kadek Wara. 2022. "Contested Memories and the Production of Space in a Post-Conflict City: Ambon between Tolerance and Trauma," in Routledge Handbook of Urban Indonesia, ed. Sonia Roitman and Deden Rukmana, 130-143 (New York, NY: Routledge).
Urwasi, Wara. 2015. "Cultural Landscape Urban Design: Preserving Local Identity in the Global Environment, Case Studies of Japanese and Malaysian Cities," in Encountering Asian New Horizons: Contesting and Negotiating in Fluid Transitions, ed. Francisia Seda, 111-126 (Bangkok: Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalangkorn University).
Urwasi, Wara. 2015. Spatial Segregation and Ethno-Religious Violence: A Lesson from Ambon, Indonesia. EDGS Working Paper 32, Equality Development and Globalization Studies, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern University.

For more up-to-date publication list, you can visit Wara’s Google scholar page.